Jordana Brewster is on the cover of Health Magazine for July. She’s 40, she’s been in the Fast and Furious movies since the beginning of the franchise, and she’s had steady work on TV like on American Crime Story and the Lethal Weapon series. We actually just heard that she separated from her husband of 13 years, Andrew Form, but since she’s not that famous it didn’t get a lot of press. Jordana and Andrew have two sons together: Junian, 6, and Rowan, 4. In Health she talks about body image, exercise and how she’s more comfortable with her body now that she’s older. The quotes in the title are my favorite and they’re from a video Health posted on their site. This is for their July issue and in their video Jordana is at a traditional photoshoot where no one is wearing masks, but it looks like they’re social distancing. This was published a few days ago and they talked about the lockdown, so they must have done the video and photoshoot recently. Here’s what she said in the video and I’ve included some of her print interview too:
Her favorite exercises
Favorite form of exercise is running, it just gets everything out. And I also love lifting weights. I love squats. I’m a weirdo that actually enjoys working out. I really don’t like pilates. I just can’t do it well and I don’t have the core strength.She loves desserts
Baklava is one of my favorite desserts and I also love ice cream. This restaurant, Craig’s, [has] chocolate pizza. It’s pizza dough with pie crust on top, ice cream and then chocolate sauce.I love sugar so much—I am a sugar junkie. Recently, Harley [Pasternak, her trainer] said to me, “You need to figure this out.” I appreciated his bluntness because he was right. I would have Swedish Fish with my kids—and M&M’s and Tootsie Rolls are my weakness. And I was often replacing lunch with frozen yogurt instead of actual food. Not great. I hate smoothies, and I hate juices. I like chewing. So I steam tons of vegetables and add avocado. And then I have soup with chicken or salmon for at least one of my meals.
“So did you struggle with body image when you were younger?”
I struggled for a bit because I went through so many different phases. When I gain weight, it’s not in one place. My sister gains a butt and boobs—and I turn into SpongeBob SquarePants. I just get bigger and more square. So when I was in my teens, I started having shakes and bars all the time. I am a control freak, so I went through phases where I was obsessed with the number on the scale and I didn’t want to deviate. I was never anorexic, but I was definitely too controlled to be healthy. Now, I just try to think about modeling good behavior for my kids, who love treats. And, paying attention to if I am full or just eating mindlessly.“You recently turned 40. Did you have any feelings around that?”
I really do see it as I’m so grateful to be here. I’m so grateful. I have two boys, and I’m still working. Thank God most of the women I look up to—like Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Cate Blanchett—are over 40 and are still working and thriving. So I feel like the only way to go is up from here.“In what ways are you like your mom?”
I think her work ethic—I get up at, like, 5:15 a.m. every morning to run. I like treadmills—it hurts my knees too much to run outside. [My mom] is still a member at [a gym]. She’s in her mid-60s, and she works out. So I really got that from her, and I still defer to her. When I went to get Botox for the first time, I took her because I was so scared. I was like, “Mommy, come watch.” I’m like, “Let’s make sure I don’t look crazy.” I trust her more than anyone else because she’s not scared to tell me the truth.
I can relate to loving to work out. I chase the endorphins and have a hard time doing the slow workouts that some people love like pilates and yoga. I just feel unmotivated to do yoga or stretch afterwards, which I definitely pay for. Plus I also love sugar and ice cream! I’m like a little kid that way and I think exercising can erase it somehow. I’ll have to take her advice to just eat more vegetables to fill up. She also said she likes meditating and that she can do it anywhere, and like her I also wake up around 5. I have a lot in common with her actually. I side-eye her mentioning Gwyneth Paltrow among the women she looks up to, but that’s minor. She’s not touting snake oil cures or saying she admires Goop’s business acumen so she gets a pass.
Fast and Furious 9 was originally supposed to come out on April 2, but has been pushed to August 2.
The post below is a paid promotion for the Fiton app, which is free and has some good workouts, I’ve used it a few times. (Not a promotion, it’s just free and you don’t need a subscription.)
I just don’t have the patience for things like yoga. In theory, it’d be great for me with chronic pain. But I have yet to find a single instructor who doesn’t drive me up the wall. I’ve been recommended Adrienne (I think that was her name) because she’s less flowery about it. But it’s still too BS-y for me. I’d rather just run or hit something than have someone telling me to push my energy forward or whatever. I just hate every single second of it. At the end of the day, I think it’s mostly the idea of yoga that I just don’t like – and regardless of the instructor it’s always going to be too flowery for me.
@ERINN: I never did yoga in a classroom setting but because of some pain issues, I made myself try it. It was ok but I got bored. This next part sounds weird but totally worked for me: I got a Wii Fit and did the basic poses. I was surprised to learn that I wasn’t doing the yoga movements correctly, especially the warrior pose. Once I realized that my weight was not distributed correctly and that I wasn’t breathing as I should, things changed a lot. My body actually started to respond to the yoga poses. I was gaining strength, little by little, in areas I had never focused on before. Mainly my core was stronger. I’ve slacked off big time since the quarantine started and I can feel it. Silly as it sounds, if u want to get some of the pain relief benefits of yoga but aren’t and it’s not holding your attention, I suggest doing the wii a couple of times. I think you may be pleasantly surprised.
That’s actually genius haha. I am pretty sure we have a wii laying around here somewhere, and possibly a wii fit set up too because I know SOMEONE in my family had one.
I’m another who doesn’t love yoga but I do it a couple times a week because I’m not great about stretching. I do the pre and post run series on Yoga with Adriene which aren’t bad and go by quick. Totally agree the instructor makes a huge difference. My neighborhood has a weekly yoga and wine class and the summer instructor is like a drill sergeant, barking orders and makes you stay in a pose longer if you come out of it to take a rest.
Erinn, I was like you until I found the right instructors, for both yoga and Pilates. And once that clicked, I realized I could get as good of a workout from those classes than I can with running or strength training. Sadly, instructors move away…so I haven’t been doing either of those for years. But I am on the lookout for Pilates again. The mat class I took for years had a real “power” component to it. It’s where I learned to do pushups and lots of them. But I feel like that class was maybe a once in a lifetime thing, so I’m not sure what I’ll do. So yeah, finding the right instructor isn’t easy. I’ll keep trying, though!
Pre-coronavirus, I loved my live yoga classes. Following along on a video, my mind wanders, I get impatient to be done and I’m likely to be interrupted by my kids.
My workouts right now are family hikes when the weather is nice and racing my six year old around the house when it’s not and we are all going stir crazy. Definitely no body sculpting happening.
The yoga studio I went to once a week did classes on Zoom, and our instructor made us all be on video too so while it wasn’t the same as in person, it was interactive, she gave us corrections on form, etc., which was so much nicer than just following along.
I used to HIT workouts but my knees ached so I decided to try something lower impact. I tried Pilates. At first it was hard for me to get used to the slower pace and it uses smaller muscles vs larger muscles. I had to stop using my arms or legs to power through and focus more on using my core. But it is a great overall workout, especially for people who dont like cardio. It looks easy but it is not! I am so sore. Reformer Pilates is a great workout too. I do the mat Pilates because it’s cheaper. Now Pilates is my main workout
I agree that it’s a great workout once you give in to the fact that it’s not like most other things. I feel like I was in the best shape of my life when I was doing Pilates 2-3 days a week along with running to and from class. I’m intrigued by the reformer but I just can’t pay those prices.
I tried yoga for the first time with a friend before covid and I couldn’t get into it. It was so slow and boring and the crap the instructor was spewing kept making me laugh, which then got people huffy. Never again, I will stay in the weights area.
Yoga > pilates. It’s meditative and it stretches the body. Whenever I do yoga I have a better quality of sleep. It looks easy but it isn’t 🙃.
Google says she’s from Panama. I thought she was brazilian.
I’m sure she used to date Jimmy Fallon too. I know that’s a random thing to stick out in my mind but it just struck me as an odd couple
He’s punching
Her mom is definitely from Brazil. Maybe the family lived in Panama at some point.
i love that she speaks so openly about botox and is upfront. i feel that if i ever went to get something like that done, i would want to take my mom or sister too.
I love to workout too. Pre-quarantine days I did about two workout a days or more. But since quarantine, I’ve only done a handful of zoom workouts. But I love pilates…just not mat pilates.
I used to love Harley Pasternak, but after reading this, I’m might be done. I saw her in the Country Mart maybe a year ago and she was so nice but SOOOOOO skinny. Even for LA. Im not meaning this as a body shame thing because to each her own, but I remember her being so tiny that I felt sad for her. I’m now guessing it might have been divorce stress, which makes sense. But I’m really hoping Pasternak made that comment years ago and not recently. Because insinuating that woman needed to do anything to be leaner is disgusting.